Bettie's Books

Father Gilbert is riding on a train home from a church council when he meets a man named Rob Brady. The train collides with another, and Brady dies from his injuries. His last words are "Warn him," and Gilbert discovers a business card belonging to his friend, Bill Drake. The next day, Drake is kidnapped, and the police arrest the kidnapper, Kathy Brady, Rob's twin sister (who goes by the alias "Jezzy Bell" - a play on the name Jezebel). The mystery is where Drake is, and what Kathy's motives were. To complicate matters, Drake has a heart condition and must take medication every eight hours; if he goes twelve hours without it, he will go into cardiac arrest. It turns out that Rob and Kathy are illegitimate children, fathered by a member of the British nobility. Drake arranged for Rob to stay with his mother and for Kathy to be adopted. Kathy thinks her mother, who died of cancer the year before, abandoned her at Drake's urging, and is taking out her anger on Drake. Gilbert reads her birthday letters from her mother, proving that she loved her and gave her up out of love for her. Kathy breaks down and reveals where she left Drake. The police arrive in time to save Drake and get him to a hospital, where he later expresses remorse to Gilbert for having made such a hasty arrangement without thinking of the consequences of his deed, but Gilbert says that Kathy's two families received money each year from an unspecified doner, and that the doner was Drake, because of his conscience.